'Ones to Watch' in 2013

Tom Ricketts will try to finally clinch a deal to improve Wrigley Field with some taxpayer support.

Andrew Mason will fight for his legacy, and his job, at Groupon.

And Lewis Campbell hopes to turn around Navistar to the point that his services are no longer needed.

Tribune editors and reporters identified some of the Chicago business executives most likely to make news in 2013. Here are the "Ones to Watch."

Tom Ricketts

Title: Chairman, Chicago Cubs

Why we're watching: Expect City Hall to cut a deal with the Ricketts family, owner of the Cubs, in 2013 to help finance a $300 million renovation of Wrigley Field.

No one's talking specifics. Ricketts last proposed using $150 million of city amusement tax revenue to help pay for it. He would raise the remaining $150 million by extracting additional revenue from relaxed rules on advertising and concerts at the ballpark.

But that level of public subsidy is entirely off the table, according to a source close to the team. Asked whether Ricketts would accept less taxpayer assistance in exchange for greater freedom from historic preservation and other regulations, he said "probably," but that my description of the trade-off was "oversimplified."

"We have to compete against rooftops every day that … undercut us on price," Ricketts said. "We have limits on what we can do to our stadium and inside our stadium. We have limits on what time we can hold games and when we can host events. Our position is: Let us run our business. And if we can do that, we can unlock a lot of economic potential."

The Lake View Citizens' Council reportedly is open to more night games and concerts in exchange for contributions from the Cubs to community projects and traffic- and parking-related protections. Still, Ald. Tom Tunney, whose district includes Wrigley, said he opposes a Cubs request to open Sheffield Avenue for "family-fun entertainment" during games, among other issues.

"There will be some decisions made on a community level, on a zoning level," said Tunney, who called 2013 a "pivotal" year for the team. "As for the public financing, that's bigger than me."

Ricketts said he had not spoken in the past six months with either Mayor Rahm Emanuel or the city's chief financial officer, Lois Scott. "Our teams talk to each other," Ricketts said. "And that's not necessarily unusual. It's not like we can just not talk to the city. But no matter when or what a final deal looks like, everyone has got incentives to get that done in 2013."

Andrew Mason

Title: Founder and CEO, Groupon

Why we're watching: One year from now, will Mason still be CEO of Groupon?

In November, within days of a tech conference and a company board meeting, a source close to Groupon's board anonymously suggested to an influential tech journalist that the board might fire Mason at its meeting.

If the leaker had been Groupon chairman Eric Lefkofsky, Mason would have been out of a job by now.

Mason's future hinges on his relationship with Lefkofsky. In addition to being Mason's boss, Lefkofsky is the daily deal company's largest shareholder. He also gave Mason $1 million to launch the company.

And Mason always has spoken of Lefkofsky with reverence and affection. At the height of Groupon's euphoria, he shared credit with the veteran entrepreneur at every turn, telling me in 2010: "Eric's creative and unbelievably smart and if I'd never met him, I'd never been able to be the CEO of a lemonade stand."

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FBI: 2nd escaped bank robber caught in Palos Hills

The second inmate who made a daring escape last month from a high-rise federal jail in the South Loop was captured today in South Suburban Palos Hills, according to FBI officials.

Kenneth Conley, a convicted bank robber, was awaiting sentencing when he and cellmate Joseph “Jose” Banks scaled down the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Dec. 18 with a rope fashioned from bedsheets.

FBI Spokeswoman Joan Hyde said Conley was apprehended at an apartment complex at about 4 p.m. by Palos Hills police.

Conley’s mother, Sandra, answered the phone at her Tinley Park home this  evening and said she had heard of her son’s arrest but had no details or comment.

“I’m just glad it’s over. That’s my only comment,” she said.

A law enforcement source said FBI agents and deputy U.S. Marshals returned to the area around Palos Hills this morning to canvass and talk to residents because Conley had been spotted there since his escape and was known to have contacts in the south suburbs.

By late afternoon a 911 call was placed to Palos Hills police reporting a sighting of Conley, possibly a result of the canvass, the source said.

Banks was apprehended late at night on Dec. 20 less than five miles from the jail in the home of a boyhood friend on the North Side.

Banks and Conley were last accounted for during a routine bed check, authorities said. About 7 a.m. the next day, jail employees arriving for work saw ropes made from bedsheets dangling from a hole in the wall near the 15th floor and down the south side of the facade.

The two had put clothing and sheets under blankets in their beds to throw off guards making nighttime checks and removed a cinder block to create an opening wide enough to slide through, authorities said.

The FBI said a surveillance camera a few blocks from the jail showed the two, wearing light-colored clothing, hailing a taxi at Congress Parkway and Michigan Avenue. They also appeared to be wearing backpacks, according to the FBI.

The daring escape was an embarrassment for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and a rarity for the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where the only previous successful escape took place in 1985.

A high-ranking employee in the facility told the Tribune that video surveillance had captured the men making their descent, but that the guard who was supposed to be watching the video monitors for suspicious activity may have been called away on other duties.

asweeney@tribune.com

jmeisner@tribune.com

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“GameStick” Will Be the Size of a USB Memory Stick, Plug into Your TV

When the Ouya game console (scheduled to launch in April) made headlines last year, it was for three reasons. One, its size and price — the $ 99 box, which plugs into a TV, is the size of a Rubik’s cube. Two, its choice of operating system — it runs the same Android OS which powers smartphones and tablets. And three — its rise to fame on Kickstarter, where it shattered records and received millions of dollars in funding not from venture capitalists, but from gamers who wanted to see it made.

Now GameStick, “The Most Portable TV Games Console Ever Created,” is preparing to make a name for itself in exactly the same ways. Except that in some of them, it surpasses the Ouya.

Not even a set-top box

Up to this point, pretty much all home game consoles have been a box that sits on your shelf and plugs in to your TV. (Some PCs even do this these days.)

The GameStick, on the other hand, is about the size of a USB memory stick or a tube of lip balm. It plugs into a TV’s HDMI port, and connects to a wireless controller (or even a mouse and keyboard) via Bluetooth. It “works with any Bluetooth controller supporting HID,” and will come with its own small gamepad, which features twin analog sticks and a slot to put the GameStick itself inside when not in use.

Do we know if it works yet?

GameStick’s creators showed off pictures of a nonworking “Mark 1 Prototype Model,” and posted video of a “Reference Board” actually playing games while plugged into a television. This was a roughly USB-stick-sized circuit board, which lacked an outer case.

The reference unit had wires coming out of it, but the GameStick FAQ explains that on new, “MHL compliant TVs” it can draw power straight from the HDMI port, in much the same way that many USB devices are powered by a USB connection. A USB connector cable will be supplied with GameStick just in case, and “there will also be a power adapter.”

What about the games?

The GameStick reference unit was playing an Android game called Shadowgun, an over-the-shoulder third-person shooter which is considered technically demanding by Android device standards.

GameStick’s creators say “We have some great games lined up already,” and AFP Relax confirms that it has roughly the same internal specs as the Ouya, plus a lineup at launch of about a dozen games including several AAA Android titles.

How much will it cost, and when will it be out?

GameStick is available for preorder now from its Kickstarter page for $ 79. (The price includes the controller as well.) It has an estimated delivery date of April if the project is fully funded — and with 28 days to go, it had more than reached its $ 100,000 goal.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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Helen Mirren “happy” her Hollywood star next to Colin Firth’s

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren finally got her wish on Thursday, receiving a star along the Hollywood Walk of Fame right next to dashing fellow Briton Colin Firth.

“I couldn’t be prouder and more happy that I’m actually going to finally lie next to Colin Firth, something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time,” Mirren said wryly.

Mirren, 67, who won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth in 2006′s “The Queen,” was honored with the iconic terrazzo and brass star along Hollywood Boulevard in the historical heart of the U.S. film industry.

Mirren’s star, the 2,488th since the Walk of Fame began in 1958, serves as a de facto lifetime achievement award for those in the entertainment industry.

Firth, who received his Walk of Fame star in 2011, won an Oscar as best actor for his portrayal of Britain’s King George VI in 2010′s “The King Speech.”

“Well I’m very pleased and proud and I think it’s very good for the British monarchy that here on Hollywood Boulevard, the King and the Queen are going to actually sleep together, for the rest of history,” said Mirren said at the unveiling.

The actress posed for photographers lying on her side next to her star and blew kisses to the crowd.

Writer and director David Mamet introduced Mirren.

“Helen’s performances reap higher praise than being praised, they’re loved,” Mamet said.

“And by one who’s had the absolute kick of working with her, I want to say as (British poet) Rupert Brooke said, somewhere there will be a little piece of foreign ground that is always a bit of England, and that’s right there,” Mamet said.

Mirren is starring alongside Al Pacino in Mamet’s upcoming TV film about troubled music producer Phil Spector’s murder trial.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame is administered by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

(Reporting by Alan Devall, writing by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Sandra Maler)

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F.D.A. Offers Rules to Stop Food Contamination

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed two sweeping rules aimed at preventing the contamination of produce and processed foods, taking a long-awaited step toward codifying the food safety law that Congress passed two years ago.

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

A new rule imposed by the F.D.A. would establish different standards for ensuring the purity of water that touches fruits and vegetables.

The proposed rules represent a sea change in the way the agency polices food, a process that currently involves swinging into action after food contamination has been identified rather than protecting against it before it hits grocery shelves.

“These new rules really set the basic framework for a modern, science-based approach to food safety and shifts us from a strategy of reacting to problems to a strategy for preventing problems,” Michael R. Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine at the F.D.A., said in an interview.

The F.D.A. is responsible for the safety of about 80 percent of the food that the nation consumes. The remainder of the burden falls to the Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for meat, poultry and some eggs. One in six Americans becomes ill from eating contaminated food each year, the government estimates; of those, roughly 130,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die.

Congress passed the groundbreaking Food Safety Modernization Act in 2010 after a wave of incidents involving tainted eggs, peanut butter and spinach sickened thousands of people and led major food makers to join consumer advocates in demanding stronger government oversight.

But it took the Obama administration two years to move the rules through the F.D.A., prompting accusations by advocates that the White House was more concerned about protecting itself from Republican criticism than about public safety.

Mr. Taylor said, however, that the delay was a function of the wide variety of foods that the rules had to encompass and the complexity of the food system. “Anything that is important and complicated will always take longer than you would like,” he said.

The first rule would require manufacturers of processed foods sold in the United States to identify, adopt and carry out measures to reduce the risk of contamination. Food companies also would be required to have a plan for correcting any problems that might arise and for keeping records that F.D.A. inspectors could use for audit purposes.

One such preventive measure might be the roasting of raw peanuts at a temperature guaranteed to kill salmonella bacteria, which has been a problem in nut butters in recent years. Roasted nuts might then be sequestered from incoming raw nuts to further reduce the risk of contamination, said Sandra B. Eskin, director of the safe food campaign at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

“This is very good news for consumers,” Ms. Eskin said. “We applaud the administration’s action, which demonstrates its strong commitment to making our food safer.”

The second rule would apply to the harvesting and production of fruits and vegetables in an effort to combat the bacterial contamination that has arisen over the last decade, particularly from E. coli, a bacterium that is transmitted through feces. It would address what advocates refer to as the “four Ws” — water, waste, workers and wildlife.

Farmers would establish different standards for ensuring the purity of water that touches, say, lettuce leaves and the water used to saturate soil, which will only nourish plants through their roots.

A farm or plant where vegetables are packaged might, for example, add lavatories to ensure that workers do not urinate in fields and post signs similar to those in restaurants that remind employees to wash their hands.

The food industry cautiously applauded the arrival of the proposed rules, with most companies and industry groups noting that they would be poring over them and making comments as necessary in the coming weeks.

“Consumers expect industry and government to work together to provide Americans and consumers around the world with the safest possible products,” the Grocery Manufacturers Association said in a statement. “FSMA and its implementation effort can serve as a role model for what can be achieved when the private and public sectors work together to achieve a common goal.”

The association noted that the F.D.A. will have to issue more than 50 regulations to fully carry out the new law.

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U.S. unemployment holds at 7.8%

CBS News business and economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis talks to Norah O'Donnell and Anthony Mason about the final jobs report of 2012 to be released later today.

The pace of hiring by U.S. employers eased slightly in December, pointing to a lackluster pace of economic growth that was unable to make further inroads in the country's still high unemployment rate.

Payrolls outside the farming sector grew 155,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. That was in line with analysts' expectations and slightly below the level for November.

Gains in employment were distributed broadly throughout the economy, from manufacturing and construction to health care.

That should reinforce expectations that the economy will grow about 2 percent this year, unlikely to quickly bring down the unemployment rate or make the U.S. Federal Reserve rethink its easy-money policies, which have been propping up the recovery.

"It's not a booming economy, but it is growing," Jim O'Sullivan, an economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York, said before the data was released.

The jobless rate held steady at 7.8 percent in December, down nearly a percentage point from a year earlier but still well above the average rate over the last 60 years of about 6 percent.

The Labor Department raised its estimate for the unemployment rate in November by a tenth of a point to 7.8 percent, citing a slight change in the labor market's seasonal swings.

Most economists expect the U.S. economy will be held back by tax hikes this year as well as by weak spending by households and businesses, which are still trying to reduce their debt burdens.

Friday's data nonetheless gave signals of growing momentum in the labor market's recovery from the 2007-09 recession. Many economists had expected December's payroll gains to be padded by one-time factors like the recovery from a mammoth storm that hit the East Coast in late October.

The government had said last month the storm had no substantial impact on the November data, and many economists expected the government to recant by revising downward in Friday's report its estimate for payroll gains in November. Instead, the government revised its estimate for November payrolls upward by 15,000.

"There is some evidence that underlying jobs growth has improved," Paul Dales, an economist at Capital Economics in London, said before the report was released.

AUSTERITY'S BITE

Despite the signs of some momentum in hiring, a wave of government spending cuts due to begin around March loom over the economy.

Many economic forecasts assume the cuts - which would hit the military, education and other areas - will ultimately be pushed into next year as part of a deal sought by lawmakers to reduce gradually the government's debt burden.

Initially, the cuts were planned to have begun this month as part of a $600 billion austerity package that also included tax hikes. Hiring in December may have been slowed by uncertainty over the timing of the austerity, economists say.

Congress this week passed legislation to avoid most of the tax hikes and postpone the spending cuts.

Even with the last-minute deal to avoid much of the "fiscal cliff," most workers will see their take-home pay reduced this month as a two-year cut in payroll taxes expires.

That leaves the Fed's efforts to lower borrowing costs as the main program for stimulating the economy.

The Fed has kept interest rates near zero since 2008, and in September promised open-ended bond purchases to support lending further. On Thursday, however, minutes from the Fed's December policy review pointed to rising concerns over how the asset purchases will affect financial markets.

Analysts ahead of the report expected some of the strength in job creation in December would be due to the Fed's policies.

"Despite the end-of-year angst over the ‘fiscal cliff,' financial conditions remained supportive of job growth in December," economists at Nomura said in a note to clients earlier in the week.
 

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Ex-Maine West player outlines alleged hazing attack

A young man who has sued Maine Township High School District 207 over his claims that fellow members of a Maine West High School soccer team sexually abused him during a hazing ritual said he hopes the suit will prevent further incidents.

“Nobody needs to go through what I went through, because it’s not good,” he said in an interview with WGN. “It’s not a way of life.”

The former Maine West High soccer player — only identified as John Doe C — described publicly for the first time the abuse he suffered while on the team. The Tribune does not identify victims of alleged sexual abuse.

The lawsuit also names the school’s principal and former soccer coach as defendants in the case.

During the summer of 2007, the man was an incoming freshman attending a summer camp with his soccer teammates when he was promoted to the varsity team.

According to the man and the lawsuit, filed last month in Cook County Circuit Court, he was participating in a group run when older members of the team tackled him to the ground, pushed his face into the grass, held him down and players then sodomized him with their fingers and foreign objects.

“They never really said much, they just kind of did it,” he said. “They did it like nothing happened.”

Several weeks later, he claims, a similar incident occurred again. This time, he said he decided to quit the team.

“There was something behind the scenes there. In my situation, before campus runs I would see my coach wink either before or after it happened,” he said. He later added: “Definitely, the coach was in on it.”

He said he was too embarrassed and ashamed to tell anyone else.

“Who was I going to tell?” he said. “If I was gonna tell my own peers, they were just gonna look at me and laugh at me in a way.”

The man’s lawyer, Antonio Romanucci, is also representing at least three other current or former Maine West students who claim they were the victims of hazing that included sexual or physical abuse.

The first to sue were the parents of a 14-year-old Maine West freshman who claims the boy was attacked in a similar fashion by a group of fellow soccer players last September.
 
Since the lawsuit was filed, others have come forward with additional counts of abuse, said Romanucci.

Last month, the school board passed a resolution suspending varsity soccer coach Michael Divincenzo, alleging he witnessed varsity soccer players haze younger players.

Six Maine West soccer players also have been petitioned to juvenile court on charges of misdemeanor battery and hazing.

Other school districts have re-evaluated their hazing policies in the wake of Maine West High School controversy.

“I won’t be satisfied until I know everybody at the top who knew about or should have known about this" has been disciplined, said Romanucci.

In additional to taking steps to terminate the coach, District 207 officials have discussed the hiring of an outside attorney to conduct an independent investigation into the alleged hazing and its handling.

In a statement released Thursday, the district also pointed out that the plaintiff who spoke to WGN today acknowledged that he never reported the alleged incidents to any school authority. The statement also “reiterate(d) our absolute commitment to eliminating any practices and traditions that might lead to hazing incidents.”

Tribune reporter Jonathan Bullington contributed.

nnix@tribune.com
Twitter: @nsnix87

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Samsung and Apple are still the only winners in the mobile market

The duopoly of the U.S. mobile market intensified dramatically in 2012. Despite increased efforts from Motorola, LG (066570), HTC (2498), Nokia (NOK) and Microsoft (MSFT) to gain market share, Samsung (005930) and Apple (AAPL) continue to steal customers away from every other company. During a three-month period ending in November, comScore found that Samsung’s lead in the U.S. smartphone market increased 1.2 percentage points for a controlling 26.9% share. Apple’s smartphone market share grew from 17.1% to 18.5%, gaining 1.4 points following the launch of the iPhone 5. Rounding out the top-five were LG, Motorola and HTC, all of which saw their market shares decrease from August. LG fell 0.7 points to 17.5%, Motorola dropped 0.8 points to 10.4% and HTC’s market share decreased from 6.3% to 5.9%.

[More from BGR: Samsung confirms plan to begin inching away from Android]

[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]

The research firm found that 123.3 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the period, an increase of 6% since August. A majority of devices, 53.7%, were powered by Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system, which saw growth of 1.1 percentage points. Apple’s iOS market share increased 0.7 percentage points to 35%.

2012 was a transitional year for Research in Motion (RIMM) and Microsoft. Both companies spent most of the year preparing new operating systems. RIM will unveil its BlackBerry 10 operating system later this month and devices powered by Windows Phone 8 launched this past November. As a result, both companies saw lost share toward the end of 2012; RIM’s BlackBerry platform ranked third with a 7.3% share, down from 8.3% in August, and Microsoft’s operating system dropped 0.6 percentage points to a 3% share of the market.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Taylor Swift’s ”Red” holds down top spot on Billboard chart

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Country-pop star Taylor Swift‘s “Red” finished 2012 atop the Billboard 200 album chart on Thursday, claiming the No. 1 spot for the fourth consecutive week.

It was the album’s seventh non-consecutive week at No. 1 on the chart as post-holiday digital sales accounted for more than half of its 241,000 units sold, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.

Swift, 23, has now topped the Billboard album chart for 24 weeks in her four-album career, tying Adele for the most weeks by a female artist at number one on the chart since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales figures for Billboard in 1991.

The soundtrack to the big screen adaptation of Broadway musical “Les Miserables” jumped 31 spots to number two on the album chart. It sold 136,000 units and was buoyed by a full week on the chart and the release of the film in movie theaters on December 25.

British boy band One Direction placed third with “Take Me Home,” while singer Bruno Mars‘ “Unorthodox Jukebox” and rapper T.I.’s “Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head” round out the top five.

U.S. album sales for last week were up 27 percent compared to the same week in 2011, at 9.77 million units.

The post-Christmas week, in which many cashed in their holiday gift cards, saw a record for digital song downloads in a week as a total of 55.74 million tracks were downloaded, besting the previous record of 47.73 million from the same week in 2008.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade.

Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks provide a mental and physical edge.

The drinks are now under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of deaths and serious injuries that may be linked to their high caffeine levels. But however that review ends, one thing is clear, interviews with researchers and a review of scientific studies show: the energy drink industry is based on a brew of ingredients that, apart from caffeine, have little, if any benefit for consumers.

“If you had a cup of coffee you are going to affect metabolism in the same way,” said Dr. Robert W. Pettitt, an associate professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, who has studied the drinks.

Energy drink companies have promoted their products not as caffeine-fueled concoctions but as specially engineered blends that provide something more. For example, producers claim that “Red Bull gives you wings,” that Rockstar Energy is “scientifically formulated” and Monster Energy is a “killer energy brew.” Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a Democrat, has asked the government to investigate the industry’s marketing claims.

Promoting a message beyond caffeine has enabled the beverage makers to charge premium prices. A 16-ounce energy drink that sells for $2.99 a can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a tablet of NoDoz that costs 30 cents. Even Starbucks coffee is cheap by comparison; a 12-ounce cup that costs $1.85 has even more caffeine.

As with earlier elixirs, a dearth of evidence underlies such claims. Only a few human studies of energy drinks or the ingredients in them have been performed and they point to a similar conclusion, researchers say — that the beverages are mainly about caffeine.

Caffeine is called the world’s most widely used drug. A stimulant, it increases alertness, awareness and, if taken at the right time, improves athletic performance, studies show. Energy drink users feel its kick faster because the beverages are typically swallowed quickly or are sold as concentrates.

“These are caffeine delivery systems,” said Dr. Roland Griffiths, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who has studied energy drinks. “They don’t want to say this is equivalent to a NoDoz because that is not a very sexy sales message.”

A scientist at the University of Wisconsin became puzzled as he researched an ingredient used in energy drinks like Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy. The researcher, Dr. Craig A. Goodman, could not find any trials in humans of the additive, a substance with the tongue-twisting name of glucuronolactone that is related to glucose, a sugar. But Dr. Goodman, who had studied other energy drink ingredients, eventually found two 40-year-old studies from Japan that had examined it.

In the experiments, scientists injected large doses of the substance into laboratory rats. Afterward, the rats swam better. “I have no idea what it does in energy drinks,” Dr. Goodman said.

Energy drink manufacturers say it is their proprietary formulas, rather than specific ingredients, that provide users with physical and mental benefits. But that has not prevented them from implying otherwise.

Consider the case of taurine, an additive used in most energy products.

On its Web site, the producer of Red Bull, for example, states that “more than 2,500 reports have been published about taurine and its physiological effects,” including acting as a “detoxifying agent.” In addition, that company, Red Bull of Austria, points to a 2009 safety study by a European regulatory group that gave it a clean bill of health.

But Red Bull’s Web site does not mention reports by that same group, the European Food Safety Authority, which concluded that claims about the benefits in energy drinks lacked scientific support. Based on those findings, the European Commission has refused to approve claims that taurine helps maintain mental function and heart health and reduces muscle fatigue.

Taurine, an amino acidlike substance that got its name because it was first found in the bile of bulls, does play a role in bodily functions, and recent research suggests it might help prevent heart attacks in women with high cholesterol. However, most people get more than adequate amounts from foods like meat, experts said. And researchers added that those with heart problems who may need supplements would find far better sources than energy drinks.

Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo and Poypiti Amatatham from Bangkok.

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